Wu. Muller et al., COMET ASSAY STUDIES INDICATE THAT CAFFEINE-MEDIATED INCREASE IN RADIATION RISK OF EMBRYOS IS DUE TO INHIBITION OF DNA-REPAIR, Mutagenesis, 11(1), 1996, pp. 57-60
It is well known that under specific conditions caffeine is able to en
hance radiation risk of mammalian cells by a factor of similar to 1.5-
2. Various mechanisms are discussed in the literature as possible expl
anations for this interaction, Inhibition of DNA repair plays a crucia
l role in the discussion, although direct evidence for this assumption
is difficult to obtain, We used the 'comet assay' in order to analyse
the significance of repair inhibition by caffeine in the two-cell sta
ge of mammalian gestation, Our data show that at the concentration nec
essary for increasing radiation risk (2 mM), caffeine effectively inhi
bits the restitution of radiation-damaged DNA.